LEAN MANUFACTURING

Building the lean

MACHINE
s

pend a few days inside a lean manufacturing conference, and you might think

youve stumbled into a religious revival meeting. You must lead them across
Jordan to the promised land, says one keynote speaker. Take heart, you can

do this. So what is it about lean manufacturing that has North Americas vicepresidents, plant managers and engineers pumped up with optimism? For many, its the
first time in their careers that theyve found an idea with the power to transform their
operations into the flexible and efficient plants needed to survive in the new century.
And, as true believers, they need the tools to convince those around them their bosses,
shareholders and shop floor workers that they too must diligently prepare for the lean
journey. Thats why more than 300 lean disciples descended upon St. Louis, Missouri in
October for the 4th Annual Best of North America conference. They came to hear experts
share their lean wisdom and teachings, to hear case studies of how other companies
implemented lean, and to buy the latest books and training materials from the events
sponsor. Newly-energized, and filled with missionary zeal, they return to their plants, roll
up their sleeves, and get back to building the lean machine. BY TODD PHILLIPS
www.advancedmanufacturing.com

continues >

ADVANCED MANUFACTURING JANUARY 2000 21

LEAN MANUFACTURING

he first thing you

learn about lean
manufacturing is
that its a journey you set out
upon, toward a destination
youll never quite reach.
The next thing you discover is that when youve set
up a lean manufacturing
plant its not enough.
Youve got to build a lean
enterprise: from accounting,
to upper management, to the
shipping docks. If you can
manage that, and many companies have, then you still
have to target your suppliers,
and politely convince them
or outright order them
to get lean.
And it wont be easy; its
expensive; you cant do it
yourself; it could take from
two to 10 years; and many
people will get lost on the
journey.
Lean manufacturing isnt
the type of fast-return, instant
gratification project that
most North American manufacturers like. But ready or
not, lean manufacturing is
here. An old idea, conceived
in Toyotas car-making
plants more than 30 years
ago, is being born again in
boardrooms and factories.

THE NEW LEAN ORDER

Comparison of requirements for mass and lean enterprise

AREAS AFFECTED

MASS PRODUCTION

LEAN ENTERPRISE

Business strategy

Product-out strategy focused on exploiting

Customer focused strategy focused on

economies of scale of stable product

identifying and exploiting shifting

designs and non-unique technologies.

competitive advantage

Hierarchical structures that encourage

Flat structures that encourage initiative

following orders and discourage the flow

and encourage the flow of vital

of vital information that highlights defects,

information that highlights defects,

operator errors, equipment abnormalities,

operator errors, equipment abnormalities,

Organizational structure

Operational capability

and organizational deficiencies.

and organizational deficiencies.

Dumb tools that assume an extreme

Smart tools that assume standardized

division of labour, the following of

work, strength in problem

orders, and no problem solving skills..

identification, hypothesis generation,

and experimentation.

SOURCE: DR. THOMAS JACKSON, BEYOND THE PILOT PROJECT: AN ESSAY ON BECOMING LEAN.
PRESENTED AT THE 4TH ANNUAL BEST OF NORTH AMERICA CONFERENCE, IN ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, OCTOBER 1999.

Detroit: Lean USA

he epicenter of the
lean rumblings shaking up corporate
North America is in Detroit. I
think the automobile companies are beginning to step up to
the plate, says Dr. Thomas
Jackson, author of several
books on lean manufacturing,
and vice-president of Productivity Inc., the Portland, Oregon-based education, training
and consulting firm that held
the St. Louis conference on lean
manufacturing. Certainly
Productivity has been holding

its lean conferences for years,

but to have Ford Motor Company stand up and say, Thou
shalt become lean it has a completely different meaning. Suddenly you have 4,000 first-tier
suppliers who say, Uh oh,
wed better get lean. And they
are willing to spend money and
dedicate resources.
The principles of lean
might sound good on paper,
but are companies really buying into it? At a Rockwell Automation conference in Long
Beach, California in December, panelist John McLenahen,

senior editor of the respected

U.S. journal, Industry Week
was asked about his readers
experiences. I think they are
looking at lean manufacturing, says McLenahen. We
are witnessing companies very
much in transition... its becoming more of a constant
process. McLenahen says for
many companies going lean
simply means outsourcing, and
for others, it means outsourcing only their distribution. He
says what people are really
moving towards is more flexible and agile manufacturing.

LEAN IN ACTION

A smarter way to make smart bombs

Boeings new missile-making line showcases
the companys commitment to lean manufacturing

oeings missiles are so damn smart that trained soldiers can launch
them from safety miles away from the heat of battle, and remotely

steer them to within inches of their targets. But the process for manufacturing some of those smart bombs hasnt quite kept pace with the incredible
brains. Ticketed work-in-progress is visible in various stages of assembly;

advances in missile guidance technology.

At its St. Charles, Missouri missile plant, a 20 minute drive from down-

there is little automation, and the workers work in cells and mostly in iso-

town St. Louis, Boeing makes a variety of missiles for U.S. and foreign clients.

lation from one another. Company officials say that, over the years, these

They also use a range of manufacturing methods. A tour of the Boeing plant

employees have squeezed tremendous efficiencies out of the process, but

was one of the highlights for many of the delegates who attended Produc-

Boeing would like to introduce more advanced manufacturing practices.

tivity Inc.s Best of North America conference. Its one thing to talk about

After a short bus trip across the facility, and when you walk inside Boeings new production facility for its JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) line

lean, its another to see it work.

For its older missiles, like the Harpoons, SLAMs and CALCMs, the missile

of missiles, you see a whole different world lean manufacturing.

assembly lines we were shown look much like traditional batch and queue

Starting from scratch, a group of lean manufacturing devotees within

operations that depend on a trained workforce using manual assembly tech-

Boeings missile division knew they had an opportunity to create the ideal

niques. And theres a lot to assemble. These missiles consist of about 98 per-

lean assembly plant. They benchmarked with dozens of other facilities, stud-

cent outsourced parts, and two percent Boeing-made parts.

ied best practices, conducted internal performance audits, attended lean

Seated on stools, workers pick small parts from bins, then stretch and

manufacturing conferences, and did their homework. The result? A simple

stick their hands inside tight compartments to assemble the missiles inner

looking, but highly-efficient production line that can produce top quality mis-

22

JANUARY 2000 ADVANCED MANUFACTURING

www.advancedmanufacturing.com

The e-commerce promise

ean textbooks are

also being dusted off
and lean theory revisited because of the new pressures for quicker response and
shorter cycle times that e-commerce and e-manufacturing are
imposing. Manufacturers are
grasping whatever they can to
help them thrive in an e-commerce world.
Kevin Prouty, a senior analyst with AMR Research, a
leading manufacturing analyst
firm, says that he sees more
companies taking a closer look
at lean. As e-business puts
more pressure on the plant, I
think youll see companies that
philosophically werent ready
to adopt it are now willing to
adopt it because they have to.
While Prouty says he believes lean has a lot to offer, he
remains skeptical about the
ability of many companies to
pull off the company-wide cultural transformation needed
to make lean really work.
The turmoil created by ecommerce is what Martyn
Jones calls the Internet effect. Jones is director of research for discrete industries at
the ARC Advisory Group, an
industry analyst firm that pro-

vides technology assessments

and advisory services for global manufacturers. With the
Internet, everybody knows one
thing for sure everythings
going to change, says Jones.

competitive advantage instantly.

Quick fix lean doesnt stick

ut many North American manufacturers,

eager for instant re-

LEAN DEFINED

What is lean manufacturing?

ean production is aimed at

space to become highly respon-

the elimination of waste in

sive to customer demand while

every area of production including

producing top quality products in

the most efficient and eco-

customer relations, product

nomical manner possible.

design, supplier networks

and factory management.

THE PRODUCTION SYSTEM DESIGN

Its goal is to incorporate less

LABORATORY (PSD), MASSACHUSETTS

human effort, less inventory, less

time to develop products, and less

They are not sure what it will

change to... so they are trying
to get into position to react to
whatever it is.
Jones says if you go lean,
youve got to stick to your
guns. If you look at the people
who have been really successful over time, this is a religion,
or a lifestyle, says Jones.
You have to adopt it wholeheartedly. If you just do some
band-aiding, youll get some
short-haul benefits, but when
the next wave comes you
are not going to be any better
prepared. Youll lose your

siles at a low cost about US$20,000 per missile. The line now makes about
1,000 missiles a year, but the system could crank out as many as 20,000.
On the assembly line, each munitions mechanic follows clearly outlined
standardized work procedures, and spends the same time 17 minutes
during each stage of the assembly process. There is no rework on the line,
and parts are stored adjacent to where they are assembled. Each mechanic does every other job, from unloading raw goods from trucks, to assembly, to packing up the finished product in collapsible and reusable
bar-coded containers with no packaging waste for shipping.
Boeing officials said the lean missile plant is patterned after the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Lean Aerospace Initiative and the Toyota
Production System. The key principles are value; flow, pull, value stream and
perfection. Key features are self-directed work teams, reduced cycle time,
continuous flow, waste elimination, set-up reductions and kanbans.

TP

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (MIT)

HTTP://LEAN2.MIT.EDU/

sults, try to steal the quick

fix parts of lean and awkwardly force them into their
existing plants to attack the
enemy of lean: waste. Heres
what the enemy, muda to the
Japanese, looks like. (as described by the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.) The
Toyota Production System defines seven types of waste:
Overproduction: to produce
more than demanded or produce it before it is needed. It is
visible as storage of material.
It is the result of producing to
speculative demand;
Inventory or Work In
Process (WIP): is material between operations due to large
lot production or processes
with long cycle times;
Transportation: does not
add any value to the product.
Instead of improving the
transportation, it should be
minimized or eliminated (e.g.
forming cells);
Processing waste: should be
minimized by asking why a
specific processing step is
needed and why a specific
product is produced. All unnecessary processing steps
should be eliminated;
Motion: of the workers, machines, and transport (e.g. due
to the inappropriate location
of tools and parts) is waste. Instead of automating wasted
motion, the operation itself
should be improved;

Waiting: for a machine to

process should be eliminated.
The principle is to maximize
the utilization/efficiency of the
worker instead of maximizing
the utilization of the machines;.
Making defective products:
is pure waste. Prevent the occurrence of defects instead of
finding and repairing defects.

Beware the endless

Kaizen blitz syndrome

ne quick fix lean

tool that many manufacturers turn to is
the increasingly popular
Kaizen blitz: a team set up to
attack waste and inefficiencies
in one element of a manufacturing process, and to suggest
immediate solutions. Like
much of the lean lingo, Kaizen
(incremental improvement) is
one of a number of Japanese
terms that North Americans
are quickly adopting and
adapting.
But experts caution that
stealing bits and pieces of lean
isnt enough. You will never
Kaizen your way to lean, says
Productivitys Thomas Jackson. Even someone who took
part in more than 200 Kaizen
blitzes says its tough to make
the gains stick. Kaizen is a
good catalyst for change, but it
wont sustain a major cultural
change, says Tony Laraia,
CEO of Eastern Plastics, Inc.,
and author of The Kaizen
Blitz. Its problem is its rapidity, said Laraia during his
presentation at the lean manufacturing conference. In the
long-run, only simple solutions
sustain. Its easy to say hard
to make happen.
Mass vs. lean thinking

any North American

companies find themselves stuck part way
between mass and lean production. The problem, says
Jackson, is that most managers, trained in the principles of Newtonian science,
view additions to scientific
knowledge in small, incremental improvements. They
just arent trained to make the

ADVANCED MANUFACTURING JANUARY 2000 23

LEAN MANUFACTURING

quantum leaps in thinking that

are needed. We have managers and engineers who dont
know what to do when God
throws them a curve ball,
says Jackson. The Toyota
Production Method is about
learning the culture of science continuous learning.
Mass production models,
says Jackson, are rigid creatures, that focus on exploiting
economies of scale, and use organizational hierarchies that
could have been borrowed
from medieval princes: the
strict following of orders by

untrained soldiers. Those soldiers are also expected to do

the same boring tasks, hour
after hour, day-in and day-out.
A lean manufacturing enterprise, he says, thinks more
about its customers than it does
about running big machines
fast to absorb labour and overhead. The lean enterprise has a
flat, team-based structure, with
a high degree of work autonomy. A lean organization breaks
down organizational barriers.
Instead of dumb soldiers, a lean
enterprise develops highlytrained, motivated employees

who investigate problems and

find solutions as part of their
job. A lean enterprise must
also integrate its suppliers.
Go lean: or else

f one of your key

customers goes lean,
guess what? Youre
going lean too or you risk losing that customer. The gains
from lean manufacturing cant
be sustained without pushing
lean to your supply chain. In
Boeings lean manufacturing
missile plant in St. Charles,
Missouri, a large sign board
outside the assembly area lists

all of the corporations gold,

silver and bronze suppliers.
Its no coincidence that the
most favoured suppliers are
also lean. So why do some
companies bully their suppliers into going lean?
Consider this simple image:
a dozen red cables, about six
inches long, sitting in a bin,
awaiting inspection from Boeings engineers. Boeing bought
those cables from a reliable
and preferred supplier. But
there was a small problem
with the cable connectors and
boom they failed quality

A GUIDE FOR THE LEAN JOURNEY

Lean production implementation roadmap

Phase

Phase

Phase

PLAN

APPLY

DEPLOY

INTEGRATE

EXCEL

3 6 months

2 12 months

2 6 months

Forever and always

Initial application
area teams form

Additional teams form

and norm

Teams
perform

Teams
transform

Deploy phase 2 activites

throughout plant

Deploy phase 3 activites

throughout plant

Deploy phase 4 activites

throughout plant

Improve implementation plan

Deploy lean enterprise

in value chain

Define goals,
objectives,
measures, and
milestones

Establish
a lean
organization

Research
current
conditions

PO
matrix
and
master
plan

Deploy
policy
and
master
plan

Corporate
diagnosis

Decision to
implement
lean
production
Lean
production
policy
statement

Team
charters

Target means
analysis
Lean
production
assessment
Visual
management
plan
Training and
education
plan

Prepare and
focus

Workplace
scan

Apply
5S

Develop
criteria,
prepare team
assess, etc.

Standardize
work and
inventory
buffers

Standard
work combo
sheets

One-piece
flow

Standardized
work direction
manual

Implement
area
specific
methods

Apply quick
changeover

Standardized
CO procedures

Apply autonomous
maintenance

Apply visual controls

Communicate
policy

Awareness
education
Formal
launch

Apply mistake proofing

Analyze
results

Lessons
learned and
targets
refocused

Reapply
5S

Inspired
safety
condition
program

JANUARY 2000 ADVANCED MANUFACTURING

Apply
advanced
one-piece
flow

Multi
machine
handling
Additional
TPM
Cycle time
management

Implement production smoothing

Analyze results

Apply a
kanban
system

Address
system
integration
issues,
schedules, etc.

Analyze results

Educate and
involve all
employees

Internal
integration

New ideas
for future
improvement
FMS

Invest in R&D
of new
methods and
technology

CIMS
Operator
automation
specialists

Analyze results

Apply
concurrent
engineering

Link to
process
engineering

Analyze results

Initiate supplier
development
program

Link to
supply chain

Analyze results

Apply
QFD

Link to
customers

Interface with MRPII

Analyze results

Analyze results

Study results and

revise strategy

www.advancedmanufacturing.com

Break your
paradigms

CIM and FMS

Repeat application in other areas

Implement autonomation (jidoka)

Catchball

SOURCE: PRODUCTIVITY, INC.

Phase

1 6 months
Perform
assessment

24

Phase

Publish your
results

Trade
journals
Productivity
books and
newsletters

CELEBRATE SUCCESS!

LEAN MANUFACTURING

tests. It also disrupted operations on Boeings lean manufacturing assembly line for its
Joint Direct Attack Missiles
(JDAM). There is no room for
rework on their continuous
flow assembly line, so how do
you get new cables back in?
Do you wait for a new, improved batch from your supplier? No, you toss out the
whole lot, find a new supplier
who understands the stringent
demands of a lean operation,
and put a big X next to the
supplier who screwed up your
production. Quality and guaranteed delivery from your supply chain is vital to lean. So,
how much do you think those
cables cost that supplier?
Somewhere in North America,
youll likely find an unemployed cable salesman, drinking himself stupid, telling a
bartender his side of this story.

TERMINOLOGY

Poka-Yoke: Techniques to mis-

take-proof a process.

Value Stream Mapping: A process

to determine the value added to a

Learn the lean lingo

Master these terms, and youll

provement program for achieving

facturing process.

sound like a lean manufacturing

virtually zero defects (3.4 parts per

SOURCES: MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECH-

expert in no time.

million) in manufacturing and busi-

NOLOGY (HTTP://LEAN2.MIT.EDU/); RUTHER-

Andon lights / boards: A visual

control device in a production area.

6 Sigma: A structured process im-

ness processes.

product as it goes through a manu-

FORD ASSOCIATES INC.; AMR RESEARCH

Standard operations:

INC., THE REPORT ON MANUFACTUR-

Autonomation: automation with a

Clearly defined operations

human touch. Refers to semi-auto-

and standardized steps for

matic processes where the operator

both workers and machines.

and machine work together. Autono-

mation allows man-machine separa-

for pace. Takt time defines the man-

ERNIE LABUTTE; OVERVIEW OF LEAN AC-

tion. Also referred to as Jidoka.

ING, SEPT. 1999; THE UAH MANUFACTURING EXTENSION PROGRAM;

EFFECTIVENESS OF ERROR/MISTAKE

Takt time: Takt is German

PROOFING, PAPER BY JUDY KILPATRICK,

ufacturing line speed and the cycle

COUNTING, PAPER BY BRIAN MASKELL; BE-

Balanced production: all opera-

times for all manufacturing opera-

YOND THE PILOT PROJECT, PAPER BY DR.

tions or cells produce at the same

tions. Takt time is computed as:

THOMAS JACKSON; AIS TECHNOLOGIES (AIS-

cycle time. In a balanced system, the

Available work time per day / daily

T E C H . C O M ) . P R O DUCTIVITY INC. WEBSITE;

cell cycle time is less than takt time.

required demand (parts/day).

(PRODUCTIVITYCONSULTING.COM).

Error-proofing: designing a poten-

tial failure or cause of failure out of

a product or process.

Flow manufacturing: a manufac-

LEAN RESOURCES

Need some help getting lean?

f youre company is going

gon-based firm Productivity Inc.,

from suppliers through a synchro-

lean you might consider tap-

that has translated the original

nized manufacturing process to the

ping into some of the excellent con-

works from the Japanese inventors

So, should you take

the lean journey?

end product. The principle goal is

sulting, training and educational

of lean manufacturing. They have

faster response to customer demand.

resources now available.

dozens of books, shop-floor train-

ven the most devoted

lean teachers agree
that this new philosophy can be disruptive, at
times chaotic, that it can hurt
company morale, and wont
deliver quick, measurable returns. So why bother?
For Jackson, there arent
many alternatives for companies that want to be in business in 100 years. We know
it works, says Jackson. We
also know that it is an excellent environment to introduce
advanced technical manufacturing solutions. Lean companies tend to be very
thoughtful in their applications of advanced manufacturing systems.
So to the faithful, lean is a
tool that can lead them to the
promised land of zero-waste
manufacturing. To the skeptical, its a great idea, but its too
hard to pull off. What you
think, will depend on where
A
M
you are on your journey.

Hoshin Kanri: A strategic planning

Most major consulting firms

ing manuals, videos, and also have

approach that integrates the prac-

have experts familiar with lean

consultants who can help you

tices of leadership with the practices

manufacturing and the Toyota Pro-

with your lean manufacturing im-

of management.

duction Method. They may use

plementation. You can check out

Todd Phillips is the editor of

Advanced Manufacturing
magazine. You can reach him
at (905) 634-2100.
26

turing methodology that pulls items

Kaizen: Japanese term for incre-

slightly different terminology, for

their offerings at their website:

mental improvement. A team ap-

example Ford calls its system the

www.productivityinc.com or

proach to quickly tear down and

Ford Production System, but thats

give them a call at: (800) 394-6868.

rebuild a process layout to function

not a big deal.

You

Just be sure to check out the

more efficiently.
Kanban: techniques named after

credentials of anyone you are

might

also

go

to

www.lean.org and see what the

Lean Enterprise Institute can

the Japanese word for card or com-

thinking of hiring. Have

do for you. That organiza-

munication. Stocking technique

they toured lean plants?

tion, founded by James

using containers, cards and electron-

Have they been to Japan?

ic signals to make production sys-

Have they read the original

tems respond to real needs and not

teachings of lean manufac-

predictions and forecasts.

turing? Which companies have

online lean community discussion

Womack, one of the lead-

ing authors in the lean

manufacturing world, has an

Just-in-Time (JIT): manufacturing

they successfully helped transform

group, holds conferences, sells

method where downstream opera-

into a lean manufacturing opera-

books, and links to resources.

tions pull required parts needed from

tion? Can you contact those com-

upstream operations at the required

panies for a referral?

If you are in the automotive

world, there are excellent articles at

There is little formal training

the Society of Automotive Engineers

available in universities on lean

(SAE) website at: www.sae.org.

Mistake-proofing: any change to

manufacturing, but there are ex-

You can also read about the auto-

an operation that helps the operator

cellent resources available. You

motive industrys first common

reduce or eliminate mistakes.

can even find lots of good stuff on

definition for a lean operation.

Muda: Anything that interrupts

the Internet. Type in lean manu-

The SAEs J4000 document covers

the flow of products and services

facturing at the search engine,

six lean implementation areas:

through the value stream and out

www.northernlight.com and youll

management, people, informa-

to the customer is designated

be busy for the next week surfing

tion, supplier/organization/cus-

muda or waste.

thousands of sites. To shorten your

tomer calls; product and process

One piece flow: Producing one

search, you might start with the

flow. Or you can call them at 724-

unit at a time, as opposed to produc-

people who do lean for a living.

776-4970 to order the document

time. Implementing JIT requires most

features of lean manufacturing.

ing in large lots.

JANUARY 2000 ADVANCED MANUFACTURING

That includes the Portland, Ore-

www.advancedmanufacturing.com

for US$25.